


Strangers In The Night

by LadyOfTheLake666



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Dark Kylo Ren, Dark Reylo, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Kylo Ren Redemption, Non-Consensual Violence, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rey Needs A Hug, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:34:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24438277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfTheLake666/pseuds/LadyOfTheLake666
Summary: On a faraway planet, Rey searches frantically for a Kyber crystal to fix her broken lightsaber. She thinks she’s all alone until the new Supreme Leader pays a visit.A canon-compliant dark reylo one-shot, set between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker._“She can’t. She breaks. She is broken.And then something snaps, and she thinks it’s her bones breaking, but it’s not her.It’s him.”
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	Strangers In The Night

Strangers In The Night

**tw: abuse, suicide ideation (briefly).**

_“You're so lonely. So afraid to leave. At night, desperate to sleep, you imagine an ocean. I see it, I see the island…”_

Grey waves lap at the shore. A girl stands amidst the rocks and rusted machinery, silhouetted against the white evening sky, still as the lighthouse tower that overlooks the crags. The sea winds, cool and heavy and flickering with sand, tug at her cheeks, pulling a few stray hairs from her tightly coiled buns.

It has been a long and frustrating day.

Rey makes her way through the rocky coast, littered with scraps of metal and space debris. Broken wings of old spaceships poke out from the sand, like the skeletal remains of some underwater beast. Black wires lie coiled against tarnished engines, reminding her of sand snakes in the desert she’d grown up in, abandoned by her junk-trader parents. She steps over them gingerly and notices amidst the rubble, a pilot’s seat jutting out, all torn and dulled leather. A makeshift throne for a castaway queen, perhaps.

A few spacecrafts had crash landed here, probably shot down by missiles, and were still surprisingly intact (Rey had climbed inside, braving a few bruises and checked). Years of scavenging for a living in Jakku had taught her that there was always something to be salvaged, if you cared to look hard enough.

But she couldn’t find what she was looking for and without it, the rebellion would not, _could_ _not_ , last.

After the Battle of Crait, the Resistance had narrowly escaped the clutches of the First Order and were hiding in an uncharted planet in the Outer Rims, regrouping and taking stock of their falling supplies. Luke Skywalker was dead and while Leia Organa still led the straggling band of rebels, everyone knew she didn’t have much time left. Perhaps a few months or a year was what the medical droids had pronounced. But even they were programmed to be optimistic.

And Rey, who’d come scampering back, into the welcoming arms of Finn, arms that felt so warm and solid ( ~~against the cold brush of his fingers by firelight)~~ after refusing the new Supreme Leader himself, was without a light saber.

The Kyber crystal that powered all sabers, was cracked neatly in two. It could not be fixed, only replaced. And the search for the missing crystal had brought her here, to this godforsaken planet.

The crystals weren’t exactly extinct, but they were exceedingly rare. A few often changed hands in the black market, at prices as exorbitant as it took to manufacture a few Star Destroyers and well out of reach of the Resistance’s dwindling funds. Poe had been busy intercepting the buyers and the murky trail had led to the discovery that a carrier containing shipment of these crystals had crash-landed on this planet a while ago, and so clasping on a thread of hope, Rey set the coordinates on the Falcon, flew halfway across the galaxy, scoured the coastline for the transporter, located it but discovered no hidden cache.

To be fair, even Poe Dameron had said it was only a fool’s hope.

But Rey couldn’t shake off that unmistakable feeling that someone had been here before and had taken away the precious consignment precisely because he knew someone else would come for it, someone who would be defenseless without it. 

Ever since Rey had shut the Falcon’s door on his face as he stood kneeling on the floor in the abandoned Resistance base on Crait, she hated Kylo Ren with a vengeance.

But she could sense no other lifeform for miles around and perhaps the crystals are still here, hidden or she hasn’t been looking carefully enough. She eyes the grey tower that had once been a lighthouse, rising out of the sea like the horn of some ancient slumbering beast. She wonders just how old it is, standing despite bricks missing in place, despite the waves that crash relentlessly against the crumbling walls.

So lonely, yet surviving, a sentinel of the forgotten world.

She takes a deep breath and dives into the water, swimming towards it.

But after another three hours of back-breaking foraging, she has found no sign of the elusive crystals.

*

The tower isn’t empty though.

Dusk has fallen, dappling the inside of the derelict lighthouse with a lilac glow, alighting the strange metallic paraphernalia scattered all around the dusty floor, as though it had been the workshop of some scientist, who had ripped apart his own creations in anger and frustration. In her mind’s eye as she walked up the winding spiral staircase that led to the top, she could imagine the abandoned pieces coalescing and welded together to form curious contraptions that ticked and whirled and turned, arranging themselves into flying devices she had never seen or vehicles that could trail the deepest oceans. Even now, as she pores over the wreckage, like she did once upon a time in Jakku, she imagines a lonely boy or girl locked inside a tower, gazing out to the starlit sky and sea from the holes in the walls, coming up with the maddest of inventions, dreaming of escape. 

In another life, Rey could have perhaps found it comforting, but tonight it only makes her skin prickle. She kicks at a rusted piece of metal and uses the force to shatter it completely, sending the tiny springs and cogs scuttling in different directions. She smashes an ancient droid against the wall and it breaks easily, revealing bolts and tiny nails that had been carefully laced within, and her teeth chatters.

She’s failed her mission.

In her haste, in that fetid semi-darkness, she stumbles against something sharp and a searing pain slices through her right leg. She screams, tears trailing down her cheeks, in pain and defeat, and falls to the ground, on her knees.

She’s failed to retrieve the crystals. There was no way to fix her lightsaber and the next time she’d have to face him (for wasn’t it inevitable?) all she’d have was just a blaster and…it was too shameful to even contemplate just how far the Resistance had fallen.

Kylo Ren had been right and Luke Skywalker had been wrong. His death signaled the end of the Resistance, the end of the Jedi. And she was nothing more than an orphan girl from a desert who’d accidentally found herself embroiled in a galactic war where she’d no part to play, except to die, lonely and powerless as she’d always been.

Perhaps she could end this sooner if she just threw herself off the tower.

_It would be so easy._

And then, as if on cue, tendrils of Force bristle around her.

_No, not now._

Ever since Crait, their bond had become strangely silent, as though by shutting the door, she’d expunged him from her mind for good. She was grateful for it. She finally had her privacy. Her thoughts were now her own, and not laced with those of the galaxy’s most powerful fascist leader, who she in her naivete had tried to save. Oh, she’d been so wrong about him- despite everything, he had killed his father and his uncle- and now, finally she could go back to being alone in her loneliness.

Sometimes, she felt tremors in the Force- icy rage, mind-numbing desolation, power that bled and burned like starbursts-emotions she was fairly certain that didn’t belong to her but that was it. No more visions. Their fated connection, fading at last.

Until now.

She doesn’t want to do this. She is crying for fucking sake-

And Kylo Ren steps into the dusky half-light from the shadows.

“YOU!”, she shrieks, instinctively edging backwards, fingers reaching for her blaster. “YOU—"

He stands before her, in his long black cloak, his eyes trailing downwards to where she is, kneeling on the cold floor.

His brows crease, slightly.

“I thought you never wanted to see me again”.

His voice is calm and collected. A thin scar lines his pale face, from that battle in the snowy forest. It hasn’t faded.

Rey swallows. “I don’t”, she cries honestly, suddenly conscious of her hot tears. “I wish you were dead, you lying-“

“Ah”. He sighs softly. “If only you knew how much you lied to yourself.”

She fights back her tears. It is imperative that he mustn’t see her like this. She barely registers his words, fumbling in her mind, in their minds, for an explanation-

“Why? How? I thought the bond between us was broken.”

She now understands his heart-stopping panic that she’d felt from him when the Force had first connected them. This should be impossible if she’d shut him out.

His voice is the barest whisper. “Is it?”

She does not reply.

_Why is this happening?_

He bends down, kneeling, inches away from her.

The room suddenly feels too small, too cramped. A moist heavy wind trails between them, as if filled with secrets.

“I know why you’re here”, he says quietly.

_Of course, you do, you bastard._

She turns her face away, as though he repulsed her, fixing her gaze on a broken droid. The tears have made her vision blurry and she can almost imagine it blinking back, a friend of sorts.

For one moment, a manic glint flashes in his eyes and then it disappears, as though it was never there. His fingers curl into fists and then uncurl. When he speaks, his voice is thin, a tightly coiled spring.

“The dark side is strong within you. Admit it, Rey.”

_No, no._

_Never._

“That’s…” And for the briefest of seconds, there is hesitation. But then she looks into his eyes, so fathomless like an endless tunnel, and she wills herself to be strong. “That’s not true.”

“No”, he whispers.

He is mere inches away from her, he could touch her or choke her or crush her or do whatever Supreme Leaders liked to do with their playthings. But so far he hasn’t and Rey has no intention of testing the limits of a force bond anymore.

But so close, his voice almost tickles her ears, a soft susurration like leaves rustling on a windy summer’s night. _No why am I-_

“That night in the cave, you sought it out yourself. You followed the trail of mirrors, for your lost parents. It was the darkness of the island calling to you and you answered it. Why must you lie?”  
  
It doesn’t feel like a question, but a statement. He’s calling her a liar and it stings so much, she draws back towards the wall, until she can go no further. And even though he is probably light years away, she is shuddering at the proximity between them. When they’d touched hands by the campfire, there’d been understanding or at least the illusion of it. But now all she wishes is to build a wall from her pain and shame to fill the distance between them.

“There’s also the light...in me. I know it.” It is difficult to say the words, but she must say them to hold onto a semblance of sanity. “And that is what I choose to trust, every day.”

_There’s also the light…in me. I know it. As I know it is there in you, Ben Solo. But you choose to never see it._

“Can you see it then, Rey? This light?”, he asks, reading and interrupting her thoughts.

She averts her gaze again.

“Look at me.” It is softly spoken, but it has the force of a command.

As if on cue, the wind whips her cheeks and she reluctantly faces him.

_Yes._

_No._

_I don’t know, anymore._

There can’t be an answer to this. There has to be another way.

She lets out a breath she hasn’t realized she’s been holding and chooses her next words very carefully.

“Your mother is dying.”

There’s a momentary jolt in the force.

“Are you inviting me to her funeral?”

His thoughts...seem guarded. Or he has trained himself to not feel a thing. And that she has to grudgingly admit, amazes her. She grits her teeth.

_You two-faced bastard, murderous snake, monster…_

_She still cares about you._

He closes his eyes, as if unsettled.

 _Good_ , she had broken through then.

But in the next moment, he flicks his eyes open and chooses to attack her instead. “You fear her passing because you’re so afraid of being alone. So lonely, as you are now. As you always were.”

Of course, he’d be a bully. _Of course …_

She’s mad with anger and with hate. Her rage feels like a slap through the Force.

“SHUT UP”

And he laughs.

It isn’t a normal laugh. His mouth twitches into a smirk, a flash of white teeth, and the sound grates against her skin.

It’s a cold laugh.

_How dare-_

“YOU KILLED LUKE SKYWALKER”, she yells. And even though she’s seated, and there’s barely any space for her body to move, she is trembling.

“I WISH I HAD!”

The words escape him before he even has the time to consider it. And they’re so loud and furious against her ears, she has to momentarily close her eyes, like a gunshot in the silence of the night.

_Did he mean it?_

_Did he really-_

And suddenly he has taken a few steps back, as though the impact of his own words had thrown him off balance. And Rey is standing before him and her knees are bleeding and she is shaking in rage.

“YOU MONSTER”, she yells back at him. “I believed in you. I delivered myself to the First Order for you. I left Luke’s island and I came running for you- “

“And I killed Snoke for you”. He doesn’t care. He’s shaking too. “I offered you the whole galaxy-”

“You offered me a graveyard. You want to kill the Resistance. You wanted to raze—”

They’re both standing now, glaring daggers at each other, separated seemingly by an imaginary forcefield that would surely give away any moment-

“I OFFERED YOU MY HAND AND YOU WANTED TO TAKE IT!”

“I DID NOT!”

“I felt it in the Force. Your desire. Lie to me and to yourself all you want, but the Force-“

And it is Rey’s turn for that cruel grating kind of laugh.

She has had plenty of time to think about what he’d pleaded in the throne room, replaying that scene over and over in her mind, coming up with a different answer each time. And this time, she’s too angry to think and so she chooses one of her answers that swims up in front of her, and she relishes it, the way it sends pinpricks through the force.

But the pinpricks hurt her too.

“You thought…you really thought I cared for you? After…after you killed your own father…And after you…”, she has to fight her tears again, “…you killed Luke…if you were here right now, right here, I’d kill you with my bare hands, YOU MONSTER”

He’s gone still.

Of course, she’s called him a monster before and he had even admitted it, but she knows instinctively that’s not why he froze.

“Would you really?”

His voice quivers ever so slightly and Rey can feel it how he’s trying so hard to feign a sense of calm. But was that the barest hint of a plea in his voice?

_Would you really kill me?_

She can hear his thoughts finally and it’s like a wave but she has learned to swim.

_Would I really kill you?_

She will not drown again.

“I swear it.”

She means it. Or at least, she thinks she does.

“Do it, then. Kill me.”

There’s something in his voice, the way his mouth softly moves to form the words, the staccato shortness of each of the syllables, as though they were marbles, each distinct, gently rolling off his tongue, and that rigid tonelessness of it, that terrifies her. His words sound like he’s conjuring something out of the thin air and manifesting it right before her incredulous eyes.

He isn’t goading her, she realizes with a thrill that surely cannot belong to her. It’s an invitation. 

They are standing inches from each other and suddenly she is aware of his sweat and a deep musky scent that clings to him like an aura, reminding her of underwater caves or the velvet deep of a forest, where green and the dark are one and same color.

_No, no, it can’t be. You’re not really here. You can’t physically be…_

And then she notices the lightsaber along his waist, camouflaged against his black apparel and the semi-silvery darkness of the room.

She steps forward warily, her heart fluttering like caged wings.

“Go on”, he tells her. “Touch me.”

She has a blaster right? But she can’t feel it on her. It’s probably in her bag or on the ground, and she knows he can read her thoughts and she must not think, must not-

Her fingers reach for his face, faintly tracing the scar she’d given him. She touches his cheeks with both her hands, cupping them.

_No…no…_

He’s here, standing, breathing beside her in this very room. This isn’t a force bond. How could she have been so blind, so careless?

_No._

And before the truth of his physical proximity can settle upon her like a layer of thick dust and the coil of terror in her heart can unfurl itself, his hands are upon hers, locked in an iron grip, and he has already shoved her against the wall, his body pressed against hers and his lips are quivering and his eyes are flickering with a manic fury, and she can’t bear to look upon him.

She can’t move.

She’s struggling and his grip is so tight, it hurts. Her bones are so thin and it feels as though they’re being crushed to dust and she’s aware of how frail her form is compared to Kylo Ren’s and it hurts so much.

She gasps.

“Let go of me, Ben”

His eyes are boring deep into hers, as though he’s a diver, plumbing her depths for secrets, for lies, for stratagems, for anything and his voice is laced with menace.

“So now I’m Ben to you? When you’re at my mercy?”

She is scrabbling to summon the force, to break free of his pincer-like grasp but she needs a clear mind and a calm heart to think, to quieten herself but she can’t, she feels so trapped, so claustrophobic.

“I’m not at your mercy”. She has to believe it. “You won’t kill me.”

She doesn’t believe it.

His grip on her wrists tightens. She cannot fight it, cannot fight a wall that’s threatening to smother her into rubble. Against her will, she lets out a whimper.

And it fills her with shame.

His mouth curls into a sneer. “Are you so sure?”

It hurts to even speak, but that’s the only weapon she has now. If he’s going to crush her bones to dust, she might as well slice him with words, with little knife wounds.

“You won’t”, she rasps. “You have no one else. You’re all alone.”

A thin smile grazes upon her lips, as she continues flinging his own words back at him, “So lonely, as you are now. As you always were.”

It’s the wrong weapon of course.

It sets him off and his rage feels like a sentient being, shaking before them, and it has permeated the force and it’s choking, no strangling her. Her wrists are bleeding. She can smell her own blood and the salty sea wind upon his skin. He’s upon her like a werewolf and she is in so much pain and she cannot move or breathe or think-

Was he going to kill her this slowly?

“It…hurts,” she cannot go on for much longer now. “It hurts…Kylo”

Ben Solo was dead. Of course, he was.

Before he’d killed Luke or Snoke or even Han, he had sought out the boy trapped in the tower, the boy whose mind guzzled with strange inventions, whose hands fiddled with metal, bending them to his will, awash with so many new sensations as he looked out of the tower window into a sun-dusted sea and to swirling planets and he had killed him, staring into his open, incredulous eyes, as though neither of them could believe it, as he’s killing her, slowly, painfully right now…

“And you still doubt me?”

_No._

She has doubted Ben Solo, but never for an instant has she doubted the man towering over her in rage.

Rey has never doubted Kylo Ren.

His grip hasn’t slackened one bit, even though he’s shaking and he looks like he’s about to murder her and he looks like he’s about to cry and he is so desperate, begging for an answer to his question, but she cannot reply because she can barely breathe.

She doesn’t want to die. Not like this, not by his hand when she is defenseless. With her last vestige of strength, she tries to summon her blaster, but he lazily flicks it away with his mind and of course, he could crush her- not just her bones, but her very soul into a thousand shards and she can almost see herself in his eyes.

_So tiny, so frail, a toy so easy to break and discard, like the machines scattered all around them, ripped into shreds._

He can really kill her and it would be so much easier than killing Han or Luke.

And she thinks of Finn, of Poe, of Rose, of Leia. The only family she’d ever known and so cruelly snatched away from her after the briefest while.

“P-ple...”

She can’t. She breaks. She is broken.

And then something snaps, and she thinks it’s her bones breaking, but it’s not her.

It’s him.

And he lets go, horrified, terrified of something that she cannot name and she has one glimpse of his stricken face before she slumps to the floor, like a bag of broken bones.

She doesn’t know how much time has passed. It could have been hours or a single second, but whatever forcefield he had trapped her in, has gone. At least she can breathe, even though every part of her body aches.

He is kneeling before her and his face is a mess, his hair askew. His mouth is half-open but he cannot speak.

_Rey._

_What have I done?_

He’s looking at his hands now. Droplets of blood glisten, slowly trailing down his skin, dark lines against a field of snow.

_Rey I-_

She’s trying to push herself up, using the wall for support, but it hurts so much to even move her hands, her body-

He edges towards her and she recoils.

He stops.

_Let me._

_Please._

He can’t bring himself to say the words and despite the haze of pain, Rey almost feels like snickering.

“Please”, he mouths.

That plaintive note in his voice galls her. She wishes she could inflict the same pain upon him, ten times magnified and gloat as he begs for mercy, and then, only then, would she cleanly plunge the lightsaber into the dark of his beating heart.

_Please, let me heal you._

She doesn’t want him to, but she can barely sit up, barely hold on and she’s breathing so deeply as though every second might be her last and there’s real fear in his dark eyes. She doesn’t have any words for him, for her disgust, for his cruelty.

_You’re a monster._

“I know”, he agrees, audibly and there are tears in his eyes as he reaches out to her and lifts her and brings her close to his chest, with the gentlest of touches. He’s settled against the wall now and he’s pulled her close and her head is pressed against his heart and his hands are cradling her back.

There are hot tears on her face and she doesn’t know who they belong to.

She can sense something in the force. She can’t see it but she can feel thin white tendrils encircle her, swirl and sink into her skin, scuttle through her bones and the aches are slowly dulling. It is the strangest of sensations. She isn’t even sure if the force can indeed be used like this.

It’s almost like a melody, as though the force is softly humming to her blood, bringing her back to life.

She hates him for doing it.

He’s looking down at her and it’s the exact moment that she chooses to look up and they catch each other’s reflections in their eyes and she knows that Kylo Ren is bursting to say something, to say a great many things but he cannot bring himself to.

And she realizes, he isn’t just fumbling for words. His entire mind is chaos, a room in tatters, like the one they’re in right now and thoughts are racing past, trying to cut each other and she realizes with a jolt that this is exactly how it’s always been for him.

_Kylo Ren._

Kylo Ren who has his arms around her, who is holding her close because she couldn’t move, who is using up his own life force to heal her wounds and he’s trying to say something, but for some reason, it is insanely difficult and he’s trying-

“T-tell me”, he stutters. “Why…I…I offered you the whole galaxy. You would be my queen. No-not some slave or prisoner…You did want to taste the dark. Why…how...I don’t.”

_I don’t understand._

_Why._

Rey gets it and it surprises her that the most power-hungry person in the entire galaxy hasn’t got it yet.

_Why are men so dumb?_

And then his mind is still, and she can smell the bitter aftertaste of shame clinging there, like a child caught stealing and he’s staring at her frantically for her words, for any word.

After all she’s been through, she can’t believe that she still has to break it to him like this.

“And what would that be, being your queen, Kylo Ren? Killing innocents and fucking you hard atop their dead bodies. Isn’t that your glorious vision of a new world, a new order? Isn’t it?”

He’s aghast.

 _No_ , he wants to scream.

_No, no, I._

_Rey, I don’t-_

_What is my vision._

There’s so much of shock and remorse and disgust, Rey’s surprised that he hasn’t choked on it already, that somehow he’s still so blind and clueless and childish and it angers her so much that he’s allowed to treat the universe like a playground while she has it to battle each moment just to keep breathing-

“Yes, I’m lonely”, she confesses as he looks on incredulous, “But I was alone by fate. You sought it out yourself. You pushed everyone who gave a damn about you away- “

_No, yes, no._

He wants to prove her wrong, like a boy who will not admit that his toy is broken and keep on playing and lying until everything falls apart.

“I…That’s not true”, he sputters, like a drowning man who will cling onto anything, even if it’s going to sink him. “I tried. I didn’t want… I didn’t have a choice. You pushed me away!”

There’s so much of hurt in that last exclamation and it’s directed all at her, the girl who is lying in his arms, the girl who is looking up at him with just as much hurt.

She’s trying to sit up and he’s helping her, one hand steadying her back and the other buried in the hair at her nape and her face is so flushed and open and yet he still cannot read her-

“Because you hurt me every time you pulled me close!”

Her voice is so soft, so sad and the truth of it sinks into him like an avalanche and he knows it and he cannot deny it and it shames him and he would destroy himself, everything just so he could be free of it, just so she could be free of it and he wishes so hard he could deny it, but how can he, after all the blood that stains his hands, after everything-

_Not every time._

_Not-_

And he kisses her.

It’s so instinctive, he isn’t even aware of himself as he tilts his face towards her and presses his lips against hers forcefully and she can feel the hunger clawing within him, his fingers entangled in her hair, looking for a better grip-

But a split second later, he’s pulled apart, as if ashamed, as if he’s afraid he’s done the wrong thing yet again, as if he’s been a little too fierce because he’s so desperate but her eyes are still closed and her lips are faintly parted and then she’s opening her eyes, and he’s waiting for it as though his life hangs in balance-

She’s opened her eyes, a little surprised, _so soon?_

And the expression on her face isn’t hate, it isn’t hate and he can breathe again and he kisses her, gently, deeply and she kisses him back, bending into him, her fingers soft around his neck and she’s kissing him, firmly and they’re pressed against each other in the half-darkness of the tower room and her lips part and he’s actually hesitant but he doesn’t want this to end and he slides his tongue in slowly, testing and then, hers are upon his, and it’s starfire and sweetness and longing and loneliness, bleeding and blazing through their twin souls, and she doesn’t want to let go and he doesn’t either, and this, this is the softest they’ve ever been, the only softness they’ve ever known, she a girl abandoned in a desert and he a boy trapped in a tower of his own making, dreaming of freedom and escape and craving a certain softness and this kiss is all of it and more and something else too, a story in itself, a magic, a yearning, a sort of dreamy wistfulness and they’re snuggled against each other, as waves crash against the crumbling lighthouse that’s as broken as their twin souls, and here they are, still breathing, in each other’s arms and she’s the softest and the kindest and he’s a blaze in the darkness and it’s all they are, all they have and they will not let go.

And then suddenly it’s over and they’re pulling apart to breathe, to look at each other.

“I never wanted to kill you”, he admits and there are tears at the corners of his eyes. He looks so broken, as he did in the throne room when he offered her his hand.

She’s still sad, as though she’s fighting an invisible war with herself.

“I hate you but I don’t want you dead.”

She can’t bring herself to say, admit anything more, not even to her own mind.

The truth between two people is always a double-edged knife; it cuts them both deeply, bleeding into each other. 

And even with a bond between them, that bristles with tendrils of energy and echoes each other’s innermost thoughts, there’s so much hurt and longing that is left untranslated and unstated, mere notes in the air. There’s so much between them that they cannot say, that they cannot solve, no matter how much they want to.

But Rey knows this better. She’s lived the harsher life after all.

“We can’t do this”, she says and there’s defeat and resignation in her voice. “We’re on the opposite sides of a war. And it’s only going to end with one of us dead.”

It’s true but he doesn’t want it to be.

“You won’t stop”, she continues, “until you hunt down every last member of the Resistance.”

He wishes she would stop.

_But not you._

“You want one order, your order, whatever that is, to rule the whole galaxy. And you want me to be there, your puppet queen to watch the world burn.”

_No, Rey._

He doesn’t have anything to say to this, except flinch in shame.

But what hurts him even more is that she’s not even expecting him to say anything.

For a moment he looks around, as if hoping an answer would present itself from amidst the rubble. Then, very quietly he says, “When I read your mind, you were so afraid of me, all the things you thought I would do to you. I…it frightened me.”

_You’ve killed so many innocents. You tortured my friends. Your Stormtroopers are violated regularly._

_But you were my guest. I wouldn’t do anything…like that to you. Ever._

_Yet you’d do it to others, to nameless strangers and to people I care about. And you ask me to be grateful that you’d spare me from such atrocities, because you’ve taken a fancy to-_

He recoils so hard as though he’s been slapped.

 _Kylo Ren_ , he struggles to think, _is a monster and a lot of things. But surely not, and I’m not…I wouldn’t want to…_

“Who are you?’, she asks aloud.

_Ben Solo or Kylo Ren?_

He wishes so much he had an answer to this. He wants to cup her cheeks and hold her close and never let her feel this afraid, and promise her that she’d never have to fear again, but he can’t. He can’t make empty promises.

“I don’t know”, he answers. It’s probably the truest thing he’s ever said.

_I don’t know._

“That’s why I’m so afraid of you”, she whispers back.

“But you weren’t, when we touched hands.”

And that feels like a memory of a past life- the coldness of the hut, the warmth of the campfire, their shared loneliness, the way he listened to her every word, the way he took off his gloves, the way her fingers found his and the visions that swam before them enticingly.

Whatever that was, they both felt it.

But not anymore. Rey sighs.

“I still had hope, then.”

He’d betrayed her, he’d betrayed her in the most brutal way a person could and there’s nothing he can do, it is so hopeless, but he wants it, he wants-

“I didn’t want to take you to Snoke’s room,” he says at last. “But you were never in any real danger- “

_Like today?_

He flinches.

_I’m sorry._

And then quickly he adds, “In the elevator, I wanted to…I wanted-” It is so difficult to say it. He cannot say it. “I dreamed…”

_I dreamed of you, by my side._

“Me too.”

He looks at her as she says it and he is thinking just how radiant she is and he doesn’t deserve to be even near this splendor.

They are both quiet for a long time.

“Can I stay with you tonight?”, he asks at length. But he’s begging her really.

It’s the closest he can get. She’s right- they’re on the wrong sides of a war and they can’t come close without one of them getting burnt, and there’s too much hurt and hate between them, after all, he’s done some unspeakable things and even if he does by some miracle manage to return to the light, it wouldn’t absolve him, but only illuminate the sordid shreds of his soul.

It would never be enough.

But maybe, just for a few moments…

_Yes._

She’s too afraid to say it out loud, but it’s enough.

She edges towards him, wrapping her arms around his back. There are dull aches all over her body and he can sense her pain and exhaustion and just how cold she is, how small and fragile her body and how could he even have thought-

And he’s wrapping his cloak around her, _but_ _how can darkness truly warm the light_ , with fingers that could wreak such violence now suddenly gentle, and they are pressed against each other, their beating hearts separated only by a thin layer of clothing and she’s placing her head against his chest and he’s pressing kisses in her hair, down her forehead, delicately, slowly and he can hear her gentle breathing and it fills him with life, with hope.

She’s trusting him this much and it surprises them both.

But they’re trying too hard to not think of this too deeply. The air is damp and cold and silvery starlight glistens on her hair and he’s mesmerized by just how beautiful it is. 

“I want to believe in the best of you”, she is saying softly. “Does that make me a monster too?”

Her eyes are closed but if they weren’t, she’d have seen the faintest hint of a smile in his eyes.

It’s a pretty sad smile though.

_Oh, you little fool._

“Or that too?”, she asks, laughing ever so softly.

_I don’t know._

He doesn’t really, only she does and she’s drifting off to sleep.

He’s seized with a sudden fear, that this may be the last time they’re together like this, and she must know this, the only truth he can offer to a girl who deserves so much more.

_I know I am a monster. But I wish I wasn’t one. I…don’t want to be one._

Night has fallen all around them. He can hear the sea and her soft breathing. He waits in the dark, hardly daring to breathe.

His thoughts bristle at the edge of her sleepy consciousness. She registers them dimly, but there is no surprise, just recognition.

_I know, Ben, I know._

And she’s fallen asleep in his arms and he holds her for the rest of the night, silent tears trickling down the thin scar along his face, falling softly into her hair, flicked with traces of sand.

*

When she wakes up, he is gone.

She’s a bit groggy and slowly she realizes she’s still wrapped in his cloak. The scars in her wrists and legs are all gone. So has the pain. That scene may have never happened.

Golden sunlight washes over her, through the cracks in the tower walls.

For a moment, she sits quietly, basking in that magical light, wondering if last night had been a dream, and it fills her with a sad wistfulness, as though she’s lost something she cannot remember.

She feels defeated but she doesn’t know why.

It takes her another moment for her to remember the crystals and why she is here and the sadness bursts at the prospect of going back to the Resistance empty-handed.

The fact that Kylo Ren didn’t want to be a monster, didn’t change all the monstrous things he’d done. That she didn’t want to be a failure didn’t change the fact that she’d still failed. All she can do is to live with it, for however long she can and try her best to do better, to look for hope amidst the ruins, even if it leads to more dead ends.

She will never stop trying.

It’s then she notices it. There, shimmering in one of the cracks- rainbow light spilling all over, as though fractured through the lens of a prism.

He hasn’t left her a note and she never expected him to.

But there in that far corner, she spots it.

A lone Kyber crystal, perfectly cut, carefully balanced, glistening in the sun. 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: 
> 
> Hello, all! 
> 
> Writing reylo is pretty therapeutic but I feel so nervous about sharing them online. I’m working on two multi-chapter fics (one is a reylo Orpheus x Eurydice retelling and the other is a TROS fix-it fic with Beauty And The Beast vibes) along with a Cinderella! reylo one-shot. So let me know if you like my writing or if there’s anything I can do to improve it. Did I get Rey and Kylo’s characters right? 
> 
> Honestly, I'd really appreciate any reviews/ comments/ feedback that I get!
> 
> It’s almost three months since I last stepped out and the pandemic is getting worse in my country. My university exams will probably get cancelled (it’s my last semester) and with the state of the economy, I’m not sure how I’ll even land a job. It’s making me really anxious but on the plus side, at least I have some time to write. I hope y’all are safe and well, it's pretty lonely here and if there's someone out there, reading this, I'd really be grateful for your response, any response!
> 
> I’m also on tumblr as ladyofthelake666, so feel free to message me there if you’d like to fangirl over reylo or anything geeky!


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